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Madame de Graffigny had begged Turgot's opinion upon the manuscript of a work composed, as so many others were, after the pattern of Montesquieu's Lettres Persanes, now nearly thirty years old, and bearing the accurately imitative title of Lettres Peruviennes. A Peruvian comes to Europe, and sends to a friend or mistress in Peru a series of remarks on civilisation.
"I am a loyal Frenchwoman, and can cry `Vive le Roi! `Vive la France! with all my heart." Jack and Bill, who had quaked at the thoughts of being made prisoners by the soldiers, now began to have better hope of escaping. The sergeant, however, was not to be deceived by Dame Turgot's manner. "Come, come, I must search your house, notwithstanding.
The Spirit of Laws was published in 1748, that is to say a couple of years before Turgot's Discourse at the Sorbonne. Voltaire's Essay on Manners did not come out until 1757, or seven years later than the Discourse; but Voltaire himself has told us that its composition dates from 1740, when he prepared this new presentation of European history for the service of Madame du Châtelet.
Apart from these, the greatest and most difficult of all Turgot's administrative reforms, we may notice in passing his assiduity in watching for the smaller opportunities of making life easier to the people of his province. His private benevolence was incessant and marked.
There is something almost tragic in the joy with which Turgot's dismissal was received on all sides. 'I seem, said Marmontel, 'to be looking at a band of brigands in the forest of Bondy, who have just heard that the provost-marshal has been discharged. Voltaire and Condorcet were not more dismayed by the fall of the minister, than by the insensate delight which greeted the catastrophe.
We have already said that the keyword to Turgot's political aims and social theory was not Pity nor Benevolence, but Justice. It was Justice also, not temporary Prejudice nor Passion, that guided his judgment through the heated issues of the time. This justice and exact reasonableness it was impossible to surprise or throw off its guard.
This was the time when the passion for provincial academies of all sorts was at its height. When we consider that Turgot's society was not practical but deliberative, and what themes he proposed for discussion by it, we may believe that it was one of the less useful of his works.
An Italian economist, when he heard of Turgot's appointment, wrote to a friend in France as follows: "So Turgot is controller general! He will not remain in office long enough to carry out his plans. He will punish some scoundrels; he will bluster about and lose his temper; he will be anxious to do good, but will run against obstacles and rogues at every turn.
Condorcet justly remarks on this trait, that 'goodness and even generosity are not rare sentiments in childhood; but for these sentiments to be guided by such wisdom, this really seems the presage of an extraordinary man, all whose sentiments should be virtues, because they would always be controlled by reason. It is at any rate certain that the union of profound benevolence with judgment, which this story prefigures, was the supreme distinction of Turgot's character.
It was not surprising that the family should come in for its share of destructive criticism, along with the other elements of the established system, but it is a proof of the solidity of Turgot's understanding that he should from the first have detected the mischievousness of this side of the great social attack.
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